Cindy’s Story

I Don’t Have Time For This!

Cindy stared at the email from Brad, the CEO, in disbelief. I’m tasking you with arranging the move of our people & workstations to the new office. Please see me if you have any questions.

She rose from her desk and marched straight to Brad’s office. He saw her coming and beckoned for her to come in.

“From the look on your face, I take it you’ve seen my email.”

“Is it that obvious?”

He chuckled, which she knew from experience was intended to disarm her for what he was about to say next. “Listen, I know you have a full workload with the merger, but so does everybody else. I’m swamped preparing for my trip to Toronto, plus the new partners are hounding me about client redistribution every time I turn a corner. Linda’s got her hands full with the HR influx, Ahmad is up to his ears dealing with worried clients, and all our sales reps and engineers are putting in overtime daily trying to keep up with the mountain of new business this has brought in. There’s really nobody else who can take this on. Besides, as our office manager you know all the ins and outs of our facility, and you have a knack for organizing this sort of thing. You’re really the best choice for this project.”

Deep down she knew he was right, although that didn’t make her feel any better. As she made her way back to her desk, she looked around their humble little office space, trying to figure out what would be involved in moving all the cubicles (how do those things even come apart?), desks, computers, file cabinets, plants, and that beast of a photocopier. Then she thought about how all the people she worked with were so very different in how they organized (or didn’t) their workspaces… she suppressed a surge of panic and sat down at her desk, unsure of what to do next.

Then Ramesh, one of the three new engineers who had been temporarily set up in the board room, came up to her desk. “So. I heard you are organizing the move. Can you please make sure I am given a corner office?”

Gah… office assignments… she really didn’t want to be that decision maker. “No promises. I just found out about this. Give me some time to process it.”

She turned to Google and began searching for office movers, and our name was one that came up. She called us and arranged to have our consultant Kyle come visit their office to see what would be involved.

If you as the reader haven’t met Kyle, you may have a hard time appreciating exactly how much he put Cindy at ease during that visit. He has an uncanny ability to instil confidence and reassurance to a person in Cindy’s situation. His organized yet relaxed approach helped Cindy believe that the project could be done with minimal disruption to their daily workflow.

They booked the move to happen after hours on a Tuesday, with the goal of having everybody show up to their desks on Wednesday morning able to start work.

Cindy wrote in to our office with the following comments a few days after the move:

“I was incredibly impressed at how much time Kyle took to explain everything, and his efforts at reducing my stress were very much appreciated! Seeing Jade manage the crew during the move itself was like watching a world-class conductor leading a world-class orchestra.

Everyone worked incredibly well together, they were safe and careful, and pleasant to work with too.”

About the only thing we couldn’t help her with was breaking it to Ramesh that he wasn’t getting a corner office.

Everyone worked incredibly well together, they were safe and careful, and pleasant to work with too.